Latest / Project Podcast / Why high-risk medical research needs strong project management

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Why high-risk medical research needs strong project management · Project Podcast

0:05
Welcome to the APM Podcast, brought to you by The Chartered
0:07
Body for the Project profession. This episode is part of our
0:11
series of Senior Leader Interviews hosted by APM Chief
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Executive Professor Adam Bodison.
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This time, Adam is speaking to Doctor Karen Skinner of medical
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research charity Life Arc. The charity aims to advance
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early scientific discoveries to the point where they could be
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developed into the next generation of diagnostics and
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treatments for patients. Aaron's Life Arc Chief Project
0:35
and portfolio officer, and she brings more than 25 years of
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experience within life sciences, pharmaceuticals and biotech,
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cutting out her career as a bench scientist.
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She later discovered that she excelled at planning, building
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relationships and getting the best from teams, which led to a
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long and successful career in project management.
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So listen on to here Adam and Karen discuss the role of
0:57
project management and getting new drugs to patients, why
1:00
medical research projects are so high risk, and why projects
1:03
success relies more on people management than robust planning.
1:11
So I'm delighted to welcome to the APM Podcast today Doctor
1:14
Karen Skinner from Life Arc. Welcome Karen to the APM
1:17
Podcast. Thanks, Adam.
1:20
I I think before we dive in to life arc and the project
1:24
profession more broadly, maybe we can start by you telling us a
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little bit about your career journey and and in particular
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how you came to be in the project profession in the first
1:33
place. I started out as a bench
1:36
scientist. I I loved science at school and
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I just knew at the outset that's what I wanted to do.
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So after I did my O levels I I did my science A levels.
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Then I did my first degree in pharmacology at the University
1:50
of Bath and then a pH. D in neuroscience at the
1:53
University of Oxford. And then during my studies I did
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a year out in industry at the pharmaceutical company.
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It was Glaxo at the time, now GSK but that was back back in
2:04
the day when it was pre merger. So it was just Glaxo at the time
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and they also kindly sponsored my PhD.
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So I did further secondments there.
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And from that experience, I just knew that I wanted to apply my
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understanding of science to improve the lives of those
2:19
living with disease, to innovate and accelerate development of
2:23
new and improved medicinal products.
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So after my studies, I got my first job and again that was
2:29
another major pharmaceutical company, Merck, where I got a
2:32
really good grounding of drug discovery there and then my very
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first taste of project leadership working in small
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project teams. I then moved to a high growth
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biotech company called BTG and all my experience up to that
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point was all in preclinical development, but I really wanted
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to move closer to the patient. And so I joined their clinical
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development team. And when I joined BTG, it was
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really small. It's only about 70 people.
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We had project leaders, but we didn't have a dedicated project
2:58
management team at that time. But we grew really fast.
3:01
We grew through organic growth and through multiple
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acquisitions and we started to take products further down the
3:08
development path all the way to launch.
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So the skills we needed were more varied.
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We needed regulatory, market access, sales.
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So our project teams were much more complex and our employees
3:19
or across multiple geographies that became apparent.
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We really needed dedicated skilled project management.
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And so although I really love the science and I still do
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through my role on those projects teams over the years,
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it was clear that my strengths were in that planning and
3:34
organisation in establishing processes so that fit for
3:38
purpose in getting the best from teams and building
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relationships. So I started doing more and more
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of that and ultimately I ended up building and leading the
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project management department at BTG.
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So I'm really a firm believer that although scientific
3:53
innovation is the core of the industry, great science just
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doesn't get the drug to the patient.
3:58
It takes a large, complex team of people to do that and it
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takes a really strong project management to get the best from
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those teams. So that's why I've kind of
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focused my career more lastly in that project management space.
4:09
Yeah, that makes sense. And I thought it was really
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interesting about what you were saying there Karen was all of
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those aspects of project management like stakeholder
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engagement, other kind of the people side of the project
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profession, if you like, they're really, really important because
4:23
sometimes I get asked about well you know is project management
4:26
the same as product management. And one one of my responses to
4:30
that is that I always feel a project management has got much
4:33
more of the kind of EQ side of things in it than than purely
4:38
being a product focused. Although clearly there is some,
4:41
some overlap between the two. I don't know if you would agree
4:43
with that. Absolutely.
4:44
I couldn't agree more. I felt like, you know, 90% of it
4:47
is that people peace getting the best from the teams rather than
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actually, yeah, the the, the, the project management and
4:53
getting the job done. Yeah, that makes sense.
4:55
So let's talk about your current role then.
4:57
So how long have you been in the role and what's a typical day,
5:03
such a thing as a typical day? Well, I've now been at Life Up
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for about four years actually, so a life arc.
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I don't know if you know so much about them.
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They're one of the largest self funding, not-for-profit medical
5:15
research organisations in the UK.
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I'm a member of the executive team and I'm accountable for
5:21
their portfolio of translation challenges.
5:23
These are really, really ambitious research programmes
5:27
focused on complex healthcare needs and then the way we've
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structured the leaders of all those challenges reporting to
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me, as does the project management organisation under
5:37
our head of PMO. OK now that makes sense and
5:41
really, really interested that you talk about portfolio there.
5:43
So for for people listening to this I I should offer a
5:45
disclaimer in advance that sometimes the APM we we we use
5:49
the the word project interchangeably when we
5:51
sometimes mean a programme or a portfolio just because it takes
5:54
too long to talk about all three of them all of the time.
5:57
But but for this question I do particularly want to ask you
5:59
about the portfolio because I suppose that life arc there's
6:02
probably no shortage of of projects and programmes that you
6:07
could run and and and could pursue.
6:09
How do you decide which ones to do?
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That is quite a challenge because there's so much
6:14
opportunity there out there. So a life arc are our aim is to
6:19
make life science life changing for people living with disease.
6:22
So we're working to source the most promising early research
6:26
validating those discoveries and supporting them through their
6:29
next steps and their development towards the clinic.
6:32
And as a not-for-profit, we can focus on smaller patient
6:36
populations that typically attract less investment because
6:39
they're not commercially viable areas such as motor neurone
6:42
disease for example, where which is a, I mean that's a
6:45
particularly debilitating and life limiting neurodegenerative
6:49
disease, but it's relatively rare compared to other
6:52
neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's disease.
6:54
So we'll know that the large pharmaceutical companies, they
6:57
will invest into research and outstanding disease, but not so
7:00
much in a smaller population. So those are the areas that we
7:03
prioritise as a not-for-profit. And so we've got projects that
7:07
are developing new drugs and diagnostics, medical devices,
7:12
digital solutions all aimed at changing the lives of those
7:16
patients. And again, it's on on those
7:19
relatively underserved areas. Now that that that that makes
7:23
good sense and and what I really like about about the work that
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Life Arc does is when people think about projects and
7:29
programmes it's quite easy to think about.
7:31
I don't know construction and telecoms and infrastructure but
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actually you're kind of living proof if you like that actually
7:40
the project profession is is a genuinely pan sector profession
7:43
that is making a difference to people's lives every day.
7:46
So that's really powerful. So so let's tell me more about
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the project delivery profession within life Arc.
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How how many people are there within that profession?
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How what size of the workforce is it and and and is that kind
7:58
of a growing area with within life arc?
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Tell me. Tell me a bit more about that.
8:02
Yes, So what life up to date, we're relatively small
8:05
organisation in terms of people. So we've got about 300 employees
8:09
today, but I would say we're growing.
8:11
So over the next year we'll probably add another you know 50
8:13
to 100 to that number. So we really are growing.
8:17
I would say we're largely a project based organisation.
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So the majority of our employees are in project teams.
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Those teams are led by an appointed project team and then
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we're made-up of members of our science organisation, members of
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our our partnerships teams, you know, folks in business
8:35
development and alliance management because we're very
8:38
collaborative with external partners and we're also
8:41
supported by enabling functions such as legal, communications,
8:46
HR and finance. So in terms of the actual
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project management professionals, we've got quite a
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lean structure I would say supporting that.
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So there's around about 15 of us with varying degrees of
8:56
expertise and competency that we assign to those portfolios and
9:00
programmes based on the level of complexity they have.
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And then we provide guidance to others within the organisation
9:06
who manage their own smaller, lower risk projects themselves.
9:11
And what about the kind of challenges and risks?
9:13
You know, I talked before about the fact that, you know, this is
9:16
maybe a different sector than most people are used to hearing
9:19
about projects within other some unique challenges and risks that
9:23
either to life arc itself or to or to this particular sector.
9:27
Well, I would say in this sector it's a very high risk
9:31
environment. Medical research is very risky.
9:34
You know, we expect a lot of the projects to fail.
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Actually I think it was, there's a famous quote from Einstein,
9:39
you said if we knew it, what it was we were doing, we wouldn't
9:42
be calling it research, which I think is always quite funny.
9:46
So I think when you're conducting have based research,
9:48
often things just don't work out and actually that's when project
9:52
management really comes into play because it's very difficult
9:56
for project teams to drop their own baby.
9:58
You know it really requires strong project management to
10:00
hold people to their delivery milestones and their go no go
10:04
decision points. And when things aren't working
10:06
out we need to kill them fast rather than allow the teams to
10:09
kind of flog a dead horse. And it's really important
10:11
therefore to define the measures of success up front to prevent
10:15
that drift. I would say another unique
10:17
challenge is you know we've got a very collaborative working
10:21
one, lots of external partners. I'm saying in healthcare no one
10:26
organisation can do it all. You need an ecosystem of players
10:30
to bring new products to patients And so life art
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collaborates really heavily with others whether they you know,
10:36
they can bring their knowledge or access to novel technology or
10:41
their ability to Co fund with us.
10:42
We collaborate with a broad range of stakeholder groups.
10:45
So we we we collaborate with the patients themselves, with other
10:49
charities, academics, pharma, biotech, the regulators, the
10:53
NHS. So I think that really does
10:55
generate some quite unique challenges in terms of alliance
11:00
management, where individuals and organisations have very
11:03
different agendas, different priorities, So you have to work
11:06
even harder at defining ways of working and ensuring alignment
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on priorities when you have such a diverse ecosystem of partners
11:14
that you're working with. There might be people listening
11:17
to this today, Karen, who are maybe project professionals in
11:20
other sectors who are saying this sounds really interesting.
11:23
I'd love to be involved in a project that's making this kind
11:26
of difference to to to to people and to the, you know, to society
11:30
at large. But they'll think, oh, but you
11:32
know what, I haven't got a life sciences background or I don't
11:35
really know a lot about science. I mean, do do you need to have a
11:38
a kind of scientific background to to work in your kind of
11:41
organisation? Is it realistic to kind of
11:43
transfer between sectors into a very specialist area like yours?
11:50
I mean I would say it helps. It helps to have that
11:52
background. I would say the vast majority of
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our team do have degrees in life sciences but and when we have
11:58
got project managers in our team who don't have a science
12:00
background but they are typically focused on our IT and
12:03
business change projects, we need project managers in that
12:07
space as well because of the technology that we're working
12:09
with and just the smooth running of the organisations.
12:12
So we don't have, you know, not everybody has that science
12:14
background. I mean I consider myself a
12:17
really accomplished project manager but when it came to
12:19
building the extension on my house, I knew I couldn't project
12:23
manage that because I just didn't have the knowledge to
12:25
challenge around the timelines and the costs and I didn't have
12:28
the time to build that knowledge either to do a decent job.
12:31
But it I mean if if people in other professions are thinking
12:34
and and moving into this area. I mean I have to say you know
12:38
what a wonderful area to work in in terms of that per purpose of
12:41
life sciences. In terms of you know changing
12:44
the world for the better and helping people living with
12:46
disease. I think you know you can move
12:49
across. I said, I would say the
12:51
different it's is if you're thinking and moving you just
12:54
have to be willing to take the time to engage with the science.
12:57
So, so not come thinking well you know that isn't for me.
13:00
I will just do the basic kind of project management.
13:02
I think if you engage with the science, you listen and you
13:06
learn, you know, I think then it's possible to develop
13:09
sufficient awareness and understanding in order to do
13:12
that role effectively as well. I was kind of thinking of the
13:16
maturity of the project profession compared to other
13:18
professions I, I don't know HR, marketing, finance and so on.
13:23
And in those professions where they are also operating kind of
13:27
pan sector, you know if it's let's say marketing or legal or
13:30
probably probably good examples there, there is this kind of
13:34
expectation. I suppose that it's OK to move
13:36
between sectors and yes, you might pick things up as you as
13:40
you go along and as you say, you have to immerse yourself in the
13:42
sector that you go into, but it's not really frowned upon in
13:46
in that way. But I thought I find in the
13:47
project profession, there's keep people sometimes identify with
13:51
their sector before they identify with their profession.
13:55
Uh, which is as I say, probably an indication of, UH, our
13:58
maturity being a little bit further behind some of those
14:01
others, UH, but but I think that's also we're going to be an
14:03
indication that we're making progress when there is that kind
14:06
of freedom of movement between sectors, so when we get there.
14:09
Well, yeah. And I would say sometimes it
14:11
really helps to have people that aren't so close to the science.
14:15
As I said, you know, we're trying to engage with lots of
14:17
stakeholders. We're trying to engage with the
14:19
patients and with the public on the work that we're doing.
14:22
You know, and sometimes we forget the the words that we're
14:26
using are jargon that other people don't understand because
14:28
we're so used to using them. So actually having people that
14:31
aren't so familiar on the team that can actually call you out
14:34
and say what does that acronym mean?
14:36
Can you phrase that in a different way?
14:37
Actually really helps with our communication with other people
14:41
in the community. We're a PM, the only chartered
14:46
membership organisation for the project profession.
14:49
When you become an APM member, you'll receive the resources and
14:52
support you need to make an impact delivering better
14:55
projects with better outcomes. Plus you'll access exclusive
14:58
training and benefits to support your ongoing career development.
15:02
Find out how we can help you reach your potential by visiting
15:05
apm.org.uk, Because when projects succeed, society
15:11
benefits. Let's talk about the kind of
15:16
charity aspect of of life arc. I know that even the big, big
15:20
corporates that I talk to are delivering projects.
15:22
They find it difficult to recruit really talented project
15:26
professionals. I guess trying to attract people
15:28
into the charity sector is, is that an advantage because lots
15:32
of people want to work in the charity sector and you know,
15:34
because it gives you that real feel good factor that you're
15:37
doing something directly for the public benefit.
15:41
Or do you have the same challenges as the big
15:42
corporates? It's just hard trying to find
15:45
good people? Well, I think we take a lot of
15:48
kind of different approaches to, to help us identify the best
15:52
people and would say, you know, first of all, we really work to
15:55
build our networks. I'm connected to a network of
15:58
project professionals, you know, through membership of
16:00
organisations like the PM for example, And by attending events
16:04
and participating in that community really helps build the
16:07
network and actually actively contributing as well, whether
16:10
presenting the events or delivering webinars or or
16:13
podcasts like this one. That also helps to really raise
16:15
the profile of the organisation that you're working for.
16:19
I know actually a member of our team, Matt Franklin, he's an
16:22
early careers ambassador for the APM.
16:24
So that's really actively encouraging our team and others
16:27
to attend early careers events. Another thing we do is
16:30
mentoring. You know, I gain a lot from my
16:33
mentors that I had in the early days of my career and I enjoy
16:36
giving back to as a mentor now. And actually it's not just about
16:40
giving back. I gain personally from those
16:42
relationships, you know, expanding my own network and
16:45
gaining fresh perspectives from another's experience.
16:48
So I think all of that kind of helps to raise awareness of life
16:52
arc on what we do here. And then I think the other thing
16:56
we do track people is we do offer a really clear career path
16:59
for project professionals within Life Park.
17:02
You know we have apprentices, project coordinators and then
17:05
increasing maturity levels of of project programme and portfolio
17:09
managers all supported by learning and development plan.
17:12
So I think that you know when people can see there's an
17:14
opportunity for progression both in their career and actually you
17:18
know a fantastic place to work both based on why we exist and
17:22
what we're trying to do for society.
17:24
I think we don't have too many problems in terms of attracting
17:27
people to come to work for us. APM strap line, it's because
17:32
when projects succeed, society benefits and it's trying to kind
17:36
of link I suppose project success with with with societal
17:39
benefit. Now obviously the work that
17:41
you're doing, clearly the outputs of those and outcomes of
17:45
those of those projects are going to benefit society.
17:49
But are there other opportunities?
17:51
Either through the way you deliver projects, the way you
17:54
design them, and the things you decide to do where where you
17:57
kind of add social value through the work that your team does at
18:00
Life Arc? Well, I mean absolutely, I mean
18:04
as you say, I mean at Life Park it's that societal benefit
18:07
that's what really drives us. You know, we're really driven by
18:11
that opportunity to address health problems facing
18:13
communities, changing health options and outcomes for
18:17
patients, improving the lives of people living with disease.
18:19
That has a much broader impact on society as a whole given the
18:23
economic impact of healthcare. So I mean we, we engage a lot
18:27
with the patients. We consider the patient voice to
18:30
be absolutely critical to make sure that whatever we deliver is
18:33
going to really meet their primary needs.
18:35
We're really committed I would say to equity, diversity and
18:39
inclusion and that's both in terms of the patient populations
18:43
that we aim to serve but also in the inclusive approach that we
18:46
take to delivering them as I say engaging the patients even
18:50
working within our teams, we share, we engage across the
18:52
organisation that everybody understands that the role that
18:56
they play in in terms of the project team and and everybody I
18:59
suppose is is part of the success that we have.
19:02
We make sure that we share the knowledge that we generate about
19:05
science and disease with others in in the community.
19:09
We still see we you know play a big role in training the
19:13
scientists of tomorrow and the work we do, we're building the
19:17
ecosystem necessary to deliver those healthcare innovations.
19:21
So forming strategic partnerships with others in the
19:23
fields. And then I would say our project
19:26
management life like we really monitor and evaluate the impact
19:30
that we have. So we really learn from we're
19:33
doing and channel our resources towards the projects that are
19:36
really going to make a difference.
19:38
We we couldn't possibly have a discussion, I don't think,
19:41
without drifting into the elephant in the room, the AI
19:45
discussion. Everybody's talking about AI at
19:47
the moment and I'm just wondering whether that's
19:49
something that that's already starting to impact project work,
19:54
you know, your organisation, and if not, what you think might be
19:58
the impact over time as it starts to really bed in as a
20:02
standard technology? That's had a huge impact already
20:07
when I think back to when I started out in science, so when
20:10
I was at Glaxo, it was all 100% in the lab, you know, wet lab,
20:15
that's what I call where all the scientists were in the lab.
20:17
Well, it's not like that today. I mean now as we look at our
20:20
labs, you know, I would say it's getting towards half and half,
20:24
50% dry lab, if you know what I mean by working in AI and
20:27
machine learning rather than wet lab.
20:29
So we're already seeing that big change and actually that creates
20:33
change for the project managers as well.
20:35
So it's not just in the resources and the workforce, but
20:37
there's a challenge for project managers and how we're storing,
20:41
processing and analysing that data.
20:44
Um, that requires kind of new infrastructures, new new tools,
20:48
new expertise. And so we're seeing big changes
20:51
there. And you know, I think it's going
20:54
to transform science even more. You know, researchers can
20:58
analyse enormous datasets now and and discover much more
21:02
complex relationships and I think that's really going to
21:05
accelerate scientific discovery. I would say things like ChatGPT
21:09
and AI art generators, they're already commonplace and you know
21:14
and you see some people concerned about the impact
21:17
that's going to have. But I I'm not concerned at all.
21:19
I think they're only going to increase our efficiency.
21:23
We don't need to see them as a threat.
21:25
It's just an A great opportunity and we just need to embrace them
21:28
as as much as possible and use them wisely.
21:32
I want to talk a bit about project success, if I may.
21:34
I'm kind of thinking more generally about the, you know,
21:37
project profession. Now, I've seen recently that
21:40
some people when they talk about project success, what they mean
21:42
is I've delivered my project on time, within budget to the
21:46
required specification. And then there's other people
21:48
that say no, no, no, hang on a minute, you can't possibly know
21:51
that because just because you've delivered the project doesn't
21:53
mean it's successful. You know, success is about long
21:57
term benefits, realisation and we might not know that for maybe
22:00
even 10 years. I mean I'm, I'm guessing for
22:02
some of the work that you're doing it's yes, you've got all
22:04
the trials and everything else that you might do.
22:07
But I guess it's going to be several years afterwards before
22:10
you get the kind of real mass data as to what the impact of of
22:14
some of your work has been. I mean how do you go about
22:18
defining what you what you mean by project success and is it the
22:21
same in every project? Well, now it's different in
22:25
every project, which is why it makes it a bit of a challenge.
22:28
But what we do actually is we start with the end in mind.
22:32
So you start with that, what's the impact that you want to have
22:35
in the world, You know, what do you wanna do for this patient
22:37
population? And then we work back from there
22:40
and think, well, if is this the impact we want to have, then
22:42
these are the outcomes we need. These are the outputs, These are
22:46
the programmes of work we would need to do.
22:48
These are the people we would need to engage with.
22:50
These are the inputs that we need and almost like build your
22:54
road map of of projects that will lead you towards that
22:57
success and then also it gives you those measures on on the
23:00
way. And these these are the
23:01
activities we need to get underway.
23:03
These are the outputs we're expecting, these are the outputs
23:06
we need to get I think to achieve that ultimate impact
23:09
because all the time we're working in that early
23:11
translation space. So as you say the ultimate
23:14
impact the patient isn't until probably five years down the
23:18
line. So actually really mapping that
23:21
out so you're understanding they're actually you're heading
23:23
in the right direction is important.
23:26
And I I mean in terms of that success, I mean with my project
23:30
management hat on, you could say it's all about having that clear
23:33
road map, that clear business plan and project plan.
23:35
And as you said, let's make sure we're clear on the aims and the
23:39
tasks and the the timelines, the customer resources.
23:41
But actually it's always about the people I think in terms of
23:45
that project success about pulling together that highly
23:49
capable team who are really working towards that goal and
23:52
communicating effectively with each other.
23:54
That's the thing that actually is most likely to get you the
23:57
impact that you want at the end of the day.
24:00
Let's talk a bit about leadership.
24:02
Obviously, you know, I'm really inspired by our conversation
24:04
today. You are a project leader in your
24:06
own right. I guess you've obviously worked
24:07
with lots of other project leaders.
24:09
What what makes a really good project leader really great one?
24:13
Any particular characteristics? Well, I think as a project
24:18
leader you you leading the team and so you it's about being
24:22
inspiring you know and believing, believing.
24:25
I mean look a lot of people there's been a lot of fantastic
24:27
project ideas but without a really strong sponsor leading
24:31
and inspiring everybody else to get behind that, things won't
24:35
happen. So I think, I think believing in
24:38
themselves and having that self a self-awareness as well team
24:41
building skills because nobody can achieve anything on their
24:44
own. So actually being able to kind
24:46
of garner the support of the team, to support them and work
24:50
with them is really important and actually then be really
24:53
focused on the outcomes, actions and outcomes to drive forward at
24:58
pace. I mean in this in the scientific
25:00
field in particular, things move on so quickly.
25:03
So you need to be moving at pace with that and being really
25:07
flexible because actually as I said, things don't work out the
25:09
way you thought they were going to do.
25:11
And so you have to be able to spot that quickly and pivot and
25:14
move and be flexible and then change the plan.
25:17
So I think, I mean it's quite, it's quite a magical person that
25:21
we're expecting this project leader to have all these
25:23
competences, but that's almost what you need.
25:26
Somebody can do all those things and then just drive drive to
25:30
deliver projects to successful completion.
25:34
There might be some project professionals listening to this
25:37
who are maybe relatively new to the profession or early in their
25:40
career, and they're listening to, you know, where you've got
25:44
to in your career and all those twists and turns that you
25:47
described at the beginning of our conversation and how you got
25:50
to be in the great role that you're in now.
25:52
And I'd be thinking I'd love to do a role like Karen's one day.
25:56
What advice would you give to those people who are trying to
26:00
to get to that point in life? Well, I would, I would say
26:04
dedicate time to your professional development.
26:07
You're like you're I'm not done learning now, I'm quite old now.
26:10
I would say you're never done learning and I would say so.
26:14
So certainly at Life Arc we have a kind of 70, 2010 approach to
26:19
our learning. So 70% is on the job trying to
26:22
find projects and and assigning yourself to tasks that enable
26:26
you to grow and development 20% learning from others.
26:29
So certainly getting a coaching or a mentoring relationship, you
26:33
know, attending conferences and webinars and then 10% doing
26:37
studying itself more, you know, in the classroom stuff, taking
26:41
courses, earning accreditations. I would really say find yourself
26:45
a good mentor and then change mentors as you progress
26:48
throughout your career and certainly I would say as you
26:51
progress in your giving back to others as well.
26:55
Yeah, I really like that. What you talking about there you
26:57
you talking about 30% almost a third of your time is, is there
27:01
on kind of learning, development, shaping and so on,
27:04
you know and that's quite a big commitment, isn't it?
27:06
But it sounds like that's what you've got the kind of
27:08
investment you've got to make if you really want to make it in in
27:11
in this field. So, yeah, brilliant Karen, it's
27:14
been an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast.
27:16
So thank you very much for coming along and thank you for
27:18
all the work that you and your colleagues are doing at Life
27:20
Arc. You're obviously making a huge
27:23
difference to society and it's great to see that in action and
27:27
and thank you for your time today.
27:29
Thank you very much for inviting me.
27:30
Much appreciated. Thank you for joining us for
27:38
this episode of the APM Podcast. If you enjoyed it, don't forget
27:42
to subscribe, leave us a review or contact us with your feedback
27:45
at apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk.
27:49
We're keen to hear from listeners with your ideas on the
27:51
topics you'd most like us to feature on the podcast in 2024.
27:56
This podcast has been brought to you by APM, The Chartered Body
27:59
for the project profession. For more information on APM,
28:02
visit apm.org.uk.